Tokunaga et al. BMC Genomics 2014, 15:1016 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/15/1016 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Simulation and estimation of gene number in a biological pathway using almost complete saturation mutagenesis screening of haploid mouse cells Masahiro Tokunaga1, Chikara Kokubu1, Yusuke Maeda2,3, Jun Sese4, Kyoji Horie1,7, Nakaba Sugimoto5, Taroh Kinoshita2,3, Kosuke Yusa6* and Junji Takeda1* Abstract Background: Genome-wide saturation mutagenesis and subsequent phenotype-driven screening has been central to a comprehensive understanding of complex biological processes in classical model organisms such as flies, nematodes, and plants. The degree of “saturation” (i.e., the fraction of possible target genes identified) has been shown to be a critical parameter in determining all relevant genes involved in a biological function, without prior knowledge of their products. In mammalian model systems, however, the relatively large scale and labor intensity of experiments have hampered the achievement of actual saturation mutagenesis, especially for recessive traits that require biallelic mutations to manifest detectable phenotypes. Results: By exploiting the recently established haploid mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs), we present an implementation of almost complete saturation mutagenesis in a mammalian system. The haploid ESCs were mutagenized with the chemical mutagen N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) and processed for the screening of mutants defective in various steps of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchor biosynthetic pathway. The resulting 114 independent mutant clones were characterized by a functional complementation assay, and were shown to be defective in any of 20 genes among all 22 known genes essential for this well-characterized pathway. Ten mutants were further validated by whole-exome sequencing. The predominant generation of single-nucleotide substitutions by ENU resulted in a gene mutation rate proportional to the length of the coding sequence, which facilitated the experimental design of saturation mutagenesis screening with the aid of computational simulation. Conclusions: Our study enables mammalian saturation mutagenesis to become a realistic proposition. Computational simulation, combined with a pilot mutagenesis experiment, could serve as a tool for the estimation of the number of genes essential for biological processes such as drug target pathways when a positive selection of mutants is available. Keywords: Computer simulation, GPI-anchor, Haploid mouse embryonic stem cell, N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea, Saturation mutagenesis, Whole-exome sequencing * Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 6Stem Cell Genetics, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK 1Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © 2014 Tokunaga et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Tokunaga et al. BMC Genomics 2014, 15:1016 Page 2 of 14 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/15/1016 Background ENU mutagenesis Genome-wide mutagenesis and subsequent phenotype- Unlike some viral or transposon-based insertional muta- driven screening has been pivotal to a complete under- gens, the DNA alkylating agent ENU can introduce a high standing of how complex biological processes operate rate of point mutations into the genome, irrespective of in classical model organisms including flies, nematodes, whether it hits active genes, inactive genes, or intergenic and plants [1,2]. The level of “saturation” in mutagenesis regions [17,18]. In the present study, we used two germ- (i.e., the fraction of possible target genes identified) has line competent haploid mouse ESC lines, H129-2 and been shown to be a critical parameter for this approach HAP-1 [7,19]. After the enrichment of haploid cells by to determine all relevant genes involved in a biological flow sorting (Additional file 1: Figure S1A and B), H129-2 function, without prior knowledge of the gene products and HAP-1 ESCs were treated with 0.25 and 0.20 mg/ml [1-3]. In mammalian model systems, much effort has of ENU, respectively (Figure 1B). For the purpose of been expended to saturate, i.e., to disclose all the genes further increasing the mutation rate, pretreatment with involved in some specific biological pathways. However, the alkyltransferase inhibitor O6-benzylguanine (O6-BG, the relatively large scale and labor intensity of experi- 10 μM) [20] was also included in the experimental design. ments have hampered the achievement of actual sat- Most cells were killed by these treatments [20], and the re- uration mutagenesis, especially for recessive traits that sidual surviving cells (0.13–0.49%; n = 4) were treated with require biallelic mutations to manifest detectable phe- 1nMα-toxin to select for GPI-anchor pathway mutants. notypes [3-6]. To overcome these drawbacks, the haploid A total of 114 resistant clones (70 from H129-2 and 44 mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC) system, in which a from HAP-1) were separately isolated and subjected to the single-hit mutation can directly lead to phenotypic previously described functional complementation assay changes without being compensated by the second copy [4] involving transfection with various combinations of of the gene, has been recently developed [7-10], and plasmids encoding the 26 candidate genes (for details, see reviewed in [11]. Methods section). As a reporter, we co-transfected ESCs Here, to address the issues of mammalian saturation with a plasmid encoding green fluorescent protein (GFP) mutagenesis, we mutagenized the haploid mouse ESCs fused with a GPI-anchor attachment motif (GFP-GPI; see with the chemical mutagen N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) Figure 1C). Only when the mutated gene(s) were exogen- and subjected them to a phenotypic screening of mutants ously restored did the cells express GFP at their surface, defective in various steps of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol- enabling mutants to be identified by their fluorescence. anchor (GPI-anchor) biosynthetic pathway. Representatively, four ESC clones were also analyzed by Sanger sequencing and their causative mutations Results were detected in the corresponding GPI-pathway genes The GPI-anchor biosynthetic pathway as a model target (Additional file 2: Figure S2). Eventually, all isolated 114 of screening clones harbored at least one mutant allele (115 mutant We chose the GPI-anchor biosynthetic pathway as a model alleles in total) in any of 20 known genes involved in the target of phenotype-driven screening for a number of GPI-anchor biosynthetic pathway (Table 1). reasons. The GPI-anchor is a glycolipid that tethers many Among the 114 mutant ESC clones, clone B502 exhibited proteins to the plasma membrane of eukaryotic cells, fluorescence when transfected with a mixture of cDNA- forming a diverse family of molecules including hydro- expressing vectors for all known GPI-anchor pathway lytic enzymes, receptors, adhesion molecules and com- genes (26 cDNAs in total), not when transfected with a plement regulatory proteins [12,13]. The biosynthetic single gene plasmid. A series of step-wise reductions in pathway is mediated by sequential additions of sugars the repertoire of cDNA-expressing vectors revealed that and other components to phosphatidylinositol (Figure 1A) both Dpm1 and Pigv cDNAs were essential to restore the [12-14]. The cell surface expression of GPI-anchored fluorescence (Figure 2A). Sanger sequencing of genomic proteins involves a total of 26 genes, which, with the ex- DNA from the B502 ESC clone identified causative point ception of the X chromosome-linked phosphatidylinositol mutations of both genes (Figure 2B–D). Thus, the appear- glycan anchor biosynthesis, class A (Piga) gene, are widely ance of this double mutant in our screening suggests that distributed throughout the autosomes (Table 1). Clos- the mutagenicity of ENU is of a sufficiently high level for tridium septicum α-toxin selectively binds GPI-anchored saturation mutagenesis. proteins at the cell surface and kills host cells [15]. A Haploid ESCs have an inherent tendency to become defect in the GPI-anchor biosynthetic pathway does not diploid during culture [7-11]. This process, autodiploidiza- affect ESC proliferation per se [16], but a loss-of-function tion, resulted in undesirable but inevitable contamination mutation in the pathway results in an α-toxin resist- of the diploidized ESCs (Additional file 1: Figure S1A). In ant phenotype, providing a platform for positive selec- this study, 86.0% of ESCs remained haploid at the point of tion screening. ENU treatment (n =3)andtherestwerediploid.Inthe Tokunaga et al. BMC Genomics 2014, 15:1016 Page 3 of 14 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/15/1016 AB Pigv Pigm Pigw Pigl Piga Pigq Pigx Pigc Pigy Purified haploid ESCs (Protein) Pigh Dpm2 6 Pigk Pigp O -BG pretreatment (Dol-P-Man) Pigs ENU mutagenesis Pigt Dpm1 Dpm3 ER lumen Pign Dpm2 Mpdu1 Pigu Collection